If imprisoning teenagers
for relatively minor crimes prevented them from committing major ones later,
Louisiana would have solved its juvenile crime problem years ago. Instead, our
state has an expensive disaster on its hands -- a disaster that Louisiana legislators
ought to address during the present session.

An unusual alliance of
youth advocates and fiscal conservatives is backing a reform plan developed
by the Legislature's Juvenile Justice Commission. But that effort won't succeed
without Gov. Foster's support.

The governor hasn't yet
staked out a public position on the issue, but the case against the Louisiana
juvenile justice system is damning.

The state's youth prisons
now hold about 1,300 juveniles. Some of them have committed serious crimes.
But three-quarters of the state's juvenile inmates are in prison for nonviolent
offenses, and most have no prior offenses on their records. Incarcerating each
one costs taxpayers roughly $44,000 to $68,000 a year.

That money has produced
abysmal returns. Louisiana's juvenile recidivism rate is 30 percent greater
than that of Missouri, where detention facilities are small, rehabilitation
is a high priority and overall expenses are relatively low.

The Juvenile Justice Commission
recommended a long list of improvements. The most pressing goal is to shut down
one of Louisiana's four youth prisons and add slots in residential programs,
day treatment and other cheaper, less restrictive settings.

The second key goal is
to take responsibility for juvenile offenders away from the state Department
of Corrections, which wasted past opportunities for reform by building new prisons.
Louisiana needs a new youth services agency that can balance punishment with
treatment.

Members of the commission
have filed bills that would further these goals. The governor should back the
legislation. Two years ago, he recognized that the adult imprisonment boom was
bankrupting the state and hurting public safety, and he lobbied the Legislature
to cut mandatory minimum sentences.

Unfortunately, some baleful
signals are coming out of the governor's camp. In an interview last month with
the Associated Press, Bernie Boudreaux, the governor's hugely influential executive
counsel, assailed the notion of putting "social workers in charge of people
on probation." Mr. Boudreaux, a former district attorney whose son is undersecretary
of corrections, also said he didn't "want a social experiment that's doomed
to fail."

In truth, Louisiana has
been conducting a social experiment on troubled young people for decades. The
costs of this experiment are intolerable -- huge prison budgets, endless litigation,
lives wasted. Though the notorious Tallulah juvenile prison opened less than
a decade ago, four of its alumni have already been sentenced to death row.

Louisiana has to stop preparing
troubled teenagers for adult prisons and adult crimes and start helping them
become productive citizens. And with Gov. Foster's help, that process can begin.